Muzaffarnagar (UP): Home Minister and BJP leader Amit Shah on Saturday urged the people to vote his party back to power in Uttar Pradesh and attacked the opposition, concentrating his fire at Samajwadi Party leader and former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.
A return of the Samajwadi Party to power would mean a return of criminals, Shah told an election rally here in the heart of farm-rich western Uttar Pradesh.
He reminded the audience that it was Muzaffarnagar — which earlier saw Hindu-Muslim violence — that laid the foundation for the BJP’s massive victory in Uttar Pradesh in 2014, 2017 and 2019. “Under the rule of SP and BSP, Uttar Pradesh was taken over by the mafia,” he said. “Those who did politics on the basis of religion and caste dominated here.” But after the formation of Yogi Adityanath’s government in 2017, all the goons quit Uttar Pradesh, he said.
He said with a BJP government in Lucknow, there had been a 70 per cent reduction in dacoities in Uttar Pradesh, a 69 per cent fall in cases of robbery, a 30 per cent slide in murder cases and a 35 per cent fall in cases of kidnapping. “Today it has been five years of BJP and there is no talk of caste, no family dispute, no goons, no mafia, appeasement.” Shah said when Mayawati was the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, “she used to talk about one caste.
When Congress used to come, they talked about one family. When the SP party used to come, they talked about goons, mafia and appeasement.” “Your one vote can also bring mafia raj in Uttar Pradesh. The same vote can also bring freedom from mafia raj.” The BJP, he said, “believes in respecting our ancestors from every region and every society”.
He said the BJP government had paid about Rs 148,000 crore to sugarcane farmers. Earlier, 21 sugar mills in the state were closed during the rule of SP and BSP. “Some farmers told me that sugarcane payment gets delayed… We are going to announce that the interest for the delay will be recovered from that mill and this will be paid to the farmers.” He said the BJP government had provided electricity for 24 hours in cities and for about 22 hours in villages.
